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City council will be asked to approve a plan to expropriate a former scrapyard and other lands in Boyle Street to make a new park and protect a historic industrial site Friday.
Administration brought the last minute move to committee Thursday after the court receiver holding the lands applied for a demolition permit for the Iron Works.
Expropriation will save the building and push the city’s major redevelopment plans forward, said Coun. Scott McKeen. “The people living there complain about the scrap yard. It looks derelict. It’s quintessential urban decay.”
The 20 parcels of land between 105th and 104th avenues and 95th and 96th streets are owned by Canadian Consolidated Salvage and a numbered company. Most of it has been used as a scrap yard for years. The city wants to use it for a park space that winds between future residential properties and a community garden. It borders the new Boyle Renaissance residential tower, the Boyle Street community hall and Urban Manor, a home where men previously living on the street are still allowed to drink a controlled amount of alcohol.

The city is moving to expropriate an old scrap yard and the historic Iron Works building in Boyle Street. November 26, 2015. Ed Kaiser / Edmonton Journal

The historic industrial property on 96th Street near 104th Avenue was built in 1909 and has always been part of renewal plans in The Quarters, the city’s redevelopment project east of downtown.
“It’s one of the few remaining industrial buildings in Edmonton,” said Mary Ann Debrinski, director of urban renewal. “It has one of the city’s oldest overhead cranes in it. It’s well-lit with high ceilings. It’s beautiful inside.”
The city has been trying to buy the land since 2007 but couldn’t agree on a fair market price with the owners. In the meantime, the owner has gone into receivership. A lawyer for the court-appointed receiver came to city hall Thursday and argued the city had no right to continue proceedings while a stay of proceedings is in place.
Councillors voted to start expropriation anyway, while directing administration to ensure all legal requirements are satisfied. The plan needs to be ratified by full council Friday.

“You have to dream big. If we want to be a little city, we dream small. If we want to be a big city, we dream big, and this is a big idea.” - Mayor Stephen Mandel, 02/22/2012

Too much of the building is a hodge podge of add ons, facades and modifications. Not much use in saving the back end. Also it has a lot of soil and building contamination issues. The COE looks like they want to save whatever is left (such as the Capital Packers chimney) and are throwing money into bad ideas thinking they are doing a good thing.

Last edited by Edmonton PRT; 30-11-2015 at 04:38 PM.

Advocating a better Edmonton through effective, efficient and economical transit.

Too much of the building is a hodge podge of add ons, facades and modifications. Not much use in saving the back end. Also it has a lot of soil and building contamination issues. The COE looks like they want to save whatever is left (such as the Capital Packers chimney) and are throwing money into bad ideas thinking they are doing a good thing.

Top_Dawg has to agree.

Typical CofE.

This is gonna turn into a ****** nightmare.

The site has to be balls deep in solvents, sludges, battery acid, etc.

Too much of the building is a hodge podge of add ons, facades and modifications. Not much use in saving the back end. Also it has a lot of soil and building contamination issues. The COE looks like they want to save whatever is left (such as the Capital Packers chimney) and are throwing money into bad ideas thinking they are doing a good thing.

Top_Dawg has to agree.

Typical CofE.

This is gonna turn into a ****** nightmare.

The site has to be balls deep in solvents, sludges, battery acid, etc.

Unbelievable that they are even thinking about this.

I was in the building several times in the 80's and it was a wreck then and lots of lead and heavy metals.

As highlander said, the front building may be worth saving, the rest is a toxic skeleton.

Advocating a better Edmonton through effective, efficient and economical transit.

I know that the façade approach isn't a favorite of a number of people, but maybe that might have to be the agreement with the owner of the building. Fine tear it down but the orginal façade is required to be saved and used in a new building.

Building could be easily kept as is with new electrical and mechanical for simple uses like a vintage market, art space, creative office space, etc. It's what they do in other cities. Putting a good building into a museum is the last thing we should be doing.

Those maintenance yards would have huge potential if we built an LRT stop just east of 95 St.

Yeah, that one.

I would love to see a side-platform LRT station built there, and the city yards and parking lots all redeveloped. That building is way better suited to be a "vintage market, etc" than the back end of the Iron Works Building.

Building could be easily kept as is with new electrical and mechanical for simple uses like a vintage market, art space, creative office space, etc. It's what they do in other cities. Putting a good building into a museum is the last thing we should be doing.

Is it really a good building, though? I like messy old character, but we're talking about a single-story industrial building with zero ornamentation past the first 15 feet.

What amazes me is that Edmonton trashed it's core, and slapped up the boxes we now must stare at. And what we have left to preserve is a scrap yard office block? On my trip East to Winnipeg, I saw incredible examples of re-purposing old structures. The powerhouse for the back shops at the CN Station DT is a TV station.A pump house that once supplied water to the warehouses is now a riverside restaurant.The freight sheds are markets. The old engine house is the children's museum. And on and on. Winnipeg GETS it. It is a money maker for the city and attracts tourist world wide. This city BLEW it. We had incredible architecture here and threw it away. All one needs to see is a pic from the 80's and today to see how narrow minded this city IS!!! A scrap yard......Well it's better than nothing. Oh but wait...the nimbys... I can just hear them......

What amazes me is that Edmonton trashed it's core, and slapped up the boxes we now must stare at. And what we have left to preserve is a scrap yard office block? On my trip East to Winnipeg, I saw incredible examples of re-purposing old structures. The powerhouse for the back shops at the CN Station DT is a TV station.A pump house that once supplied water to the warehouses is now a riverside restaurant.The freight sheds are markets. The old engine house is the children's museum. And on and on. Winnipeg GETS it. It is a money maker for the city and attracts tourist world wide. This city BLEW it. We had incredible architecture here and threw it away. All one needs to see is a pic from the 80's and today to see how narrow minded this city IS!!! A scrap yard......Well it's better than nothing. Oh but wait...the nimbys... I can just hear them......

I've been hanging around Vancouver the past few days and there is such character to this city. Just seeing the Carnegie Library bldg made me think of how Edmontons was torn down. Even with all the glass towers here there are thousands of old buildings. It's awesome. Granville St at night with the tall neon signs on the old hotels, how cool. Edmonton has literally torn down it's heart and soul and the only chance of ever bringing some of it back would be the building of replicas. As an older guy that remembers, and seeing the hundreds of empty lots where the buildings stood pretty well brings a guy to tears. Sad. I'm just thankful that there are places like Vancouver to go to to experience the total mix of new with old, the vitality and urban experience. Such a great city.

Winnipeg was the third largest city in the Country from the turn of the last century to 1957ish.

Edmonton was a pipsqueak. Calgary was a pipsqueak. We were smaller than Lethbridge is now. We were smaller than Windsor and Sherbrooke back then. We did not ever ever ever have a comparable resource in that period's architecture to the magnificence of Winnipeg.

Never.

I may be a bit boosterish in brush, but only what I can backup in basis. Edmonton early 1900's vs Winnipeg? Not touching that with a ten foot pole.

Postwar North America was caught up in a movement of modernism, urban renewal and accommodating the automobile. Unfortunately for Edmonton, the city had a smaller inventory of "historical" buildings to work with relative to other cities and could not afford to lose the buildings that it did.

An example of this tide was New York city's proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway from the 1960s would have destroyed what is now known as SOHO and a large swath of Little Italy. It would have also destroyed many of the finest collection of cast iron buildings from the 19th century.

Postwar North America was caught up in a movement of modernism, urban renewal and accommodating the automobile. Unfortunately for Edmonton, the city had a smaller inventory of "historical" buildings to work with relative to other cities and could not afford to lose the buildings that it did.

An example of this tide was New York city's proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway from the 1960s which would have destroyed what is now known as SOHO and a large swath of Little Italy. It would have also destroyed many of the finest collection of cast iron buildings from the 19th century.

What amazes me is that Edmonton trashed it's core, and slapped up the boxes we now must stare at. And what we have left to preserve is a scrap yard office block? On my trip East to Winnipeg, I saw incredible examples of re-purposing old structures. The powerhouse for the back shops at the CN Station DT is a TV station.A pump house that once supplied water to the warehouses is now a riverside restaurant.The freight sheds are markets. The old engine house is the children's museum. And on and on. Winnipeg GETS it. It is a money maker for the city and attracts tourist world wide. This city BLEW it. We had incredible architecture here and threw it away. All one needs to see is a pic from the 80's and today to see how narrow minded this city IS!!! A scrap yard......Well it's better than nothing. Oh but wait...the nimbys... I can just hear them......

I've been hanging around Vancouver the past few days and there is such character to this city. Just seeing the Carnegie Library bldg made me think of how Edmonton's was torn down. Even with all the glass towers here there are thousands of old buildings. It's awesome. Granville St at night with the tall neon signs on the old hotels, how cool. Edmonton has literally torn down it's heart and soul and the only chance of ever bringing some of it back would be the building of replicas. As an older guy that remembers, and seeing the hundreds of empty lots where the buildings stood pretty well brings a guy to tears. Sad. I'm just thankful that there are places like Vancouver to go to to experience the total mix of new with old, the vitality and urban experience. Such a great city.

I visited Van on several occasions. It is an amazing example of how a large metropolitan city incorporates it's heritage into a modern city. Certainly one of the most interesting cities I've ever visited. As for the Iron Works...Save it and re purpose before it along with so many others is mere "history"

What amazes me is that Edmonton trashed it's core, and slapped up the boxes we now must stare at. And what we have left to preserve is a scrap yard office block? On my trip East to Winnipeg, I saw incredible examples of re-purposing old structures. The powerhouse for the back shops at the CN Station DT is a TV station.A pump house that once supplied water to the warehouses is now a riverside restaurant.The freight sheds are markets. The old engine house is the children's museum. And on and on. Winnipeg GETS it. It is a money maker for the city and attracts tourist world wide. This city BLEW it. We had incredible architecture here and threw it away. All one needs to see is a pic from the 80's and today to see how narrow minded this city IS!!! A scrap yard......Well it's better than nothing. Oh but wait...the nimbys... I can just hear them......

I've been hanging around Vancouver the past few days and there is such character to this city. Just seeing the Carnegie Library bldg made me think of how Edmonton's was torn down. Even with all the glass towers here there are thousands of old buildings. It's awesome. Granville St at night with the tall neon signs on the old hotels, how cool. Edmonton has literally torn down it's heart and soul and the only chance of ever bringing some of it back would be the building of replicas. As an older guy that remembers, and seeing the hundreds of empty lots where the buildings stood pretty well brings a guy to tears. Sad. I'm just thankful that there are places like Vancouver to go to to experience the total mix of new with old, the vitality and urban experience. Such a great city.

I visited Van on several occasions. It is an amazing example of how a large metropolitan city incorporates it's heritage into a modern city. Certainly one of the most interesting cities I've ever visited. As for the Iron Works...Save it and re purpose before it along with so many others is mere "history"

expropriate a scrap yard to save the iron works building.

and allow the koermann block to be demolished for a scrap of inappropriate facadism.